Somebody Let Us Down… AGAIN!

The Republicans were doing a very good job of defeating another of the bills that the American people do not want in its present form.

S. 3217 will give the federal government more control over Wall Street as well as more control over the American people.  A test vote on the Senate floor failed on Monday, April 26, by a vote of 57-41.  On Tuesday, the test vote failed by the same tally.  Wednesday’s vote, 56-42, should have reflected to the Democrats and Harry Reid exactly what obstacles he and his crooked cronies face in trying to cram another bill down the throats of the American people.  On all three occasions, the required vote count of 60 was not reached.

FOXNews.com is reporting that “Democrats had threatened to keep the Senate in session into the night and were preparing to hold more votes testing Republican unity.”  But the Republicans have let us down again.  They have removed their objections to the bill and it will be debated on the Senate floor, I assume beginning April 29, and the debate will no doubt be limited by Harry Reid.

The Republicans were facing what the working-class-world knows as “mandatory overtime” before they wimped out to go home.

I want you to listen to me, Senators.  I am only going to say this once, but I will say it loudly and clearly and use small words so that even YOU can understand what I am saying.

While I was working, there were many times when it became necessary for the company for whom I worked to require employees to work past an 8-hour shift.  When possible, the requirement was filled on a volunteer basis.  Other times the need was so great and the situation so out of the ordinary that the company was forced to require each employee to work 10-hour days.  It was called “mandatory overtime.”

Senators, your company, that is to say the people who employ you – US! – had reached another out of the ordinary situation and you were required to perform mandatory overtime.  To avoid that, you told the company – US – to go to blazes and you went home.

You should know that your re-election is NOT ASSURED either in your party primary or in the mid-term general election next November.  You think, you honestly think, you’re going to get the Democrats to agree to keep the loopholes that you say they closed (a provision setting up the fund that would have allowed federal officials to draw on taxpayer dollars to wind down a troubled institution – a BAILOUT) exactly that – closed.  You are acting as irresponsibly as the Democrats and the American people have had it with all of you.

And I have this special message to Uncle Harry.  According to The Financial Fix,

Harry on Wednesday upped the pressure on Republicans who are blocking debate on Wall Street reform from going forward. Shortly before the third vote this week to break a filibuster, Reid charged that it was “anti-American” to attempt to alter the bill through closed-door negotiations rather than hashing it out on the Senate floor.

Doing Senate business, the PEOPLE’S BUSINESS, behind closed doors is anti-American?  What was all that stuff that you and Pelosi cooked up with the health care bill BEHIND CLOSED DOORS, Harry.  What keeps THAT from being anti-American?  By the time the voters in Nevada have finished with you, you will thank them for the cot you offered the Republicans!

Read Full Post »

A Conservative Christmas

I wanted to write a parody of “The Night Before Christmas,” but the thought of Pelosi wiping the drool from her mouth (rhymes with House, don’t you see?) was more than I could take.  I decided to tell the Conservative Christmas Story and give thanks to the Pelosi and Reid Washington bunch for making this the last Christmas the conservatives will be able to enjoy as free citizens.  At least until next year after they have all had their “come to Jesus meeting” with the registered voters in America.

Have you ever wondered why conservatives never seem to have as much money to spend on the frivolity that has become the Christmas party circuit?  I think it is because conservatives have passed the Salvation Army kettles one or two times too many and choosing to share with those less fortunate have dropped more than they know into those kettles.

Since many conservatives have lost jobs this year, even the kettles may suffer a little.  But the one thing you can count on in a conservative household is love and as much comfort food as mom can afford to prepare.

You’ll find us gathered in our churches on Christmas Eve participating in a silent Communion service we call “The Lord’s Supper.”  We’ll be asking forgiveness for all the hateful things we said about RINOs and liberals and asking for God’s strength to continue fighting for our Republic and our Democracy in America next year.

We will be giving thanks for our military men and women regardless of where they are serving this Christmas.  We hope that each one of them will feel the love of their families and friends and the presence of God in a very real way with the knowledge that the American people appreciate their sacrifice as they perform the necessary duty of keeping us safe at home.

Conservatives will be sharing quality time with families and friends.  You know what I mean – football, video games, jigsaw puzzles, picking up little pieces of toys from the bedrooms that should be with the children in the den.  (How do they get that far away, anyway?)

There will be talk of how one of the kids in the family bit the dog back; how Dad hurt his back cleaning the gutters; how everyone remembers the year Mom burned the turkey.  There will be laughter enough for everyone to hurt more than they do from eating too much.

Mostly, there will be the love we feel for each other and the total enjoyment of the squeals of the younger ones as they open their much anticipated presents.  Then in silence, we will look at each other using mental telepathy to say that we remember when times were easier, better, more economically profitable.  And everyone will telepath back, “No problem.  We still have each other and God is still in charge.”

How does all this differ from the way a liberal will spend Christmas this year?  It doesn’t.  Well, maybe just a little bit.  They will be gathered around the bread lines with the rest of us saying, “Why didn’t we realize what he meant when he said ‘Change’?” or “This global warming is freezing me to death!” or “Did you hear the one about Sarah Palin?  Turns out she is smarter than we thought.  I read her book.  It took me 14 days of going to the bookstore to stand there and pretend that I was shopping, but I finished it.”

The Palin Family will indeed be spending a wonderful Christmas sharing time with each other, cooking up all those wonderful Alaskan delicacies that go “right beside the mashed potatoes.”  No doubt, Sarah will be remembering last Christmas.  Her family was in the Governor’s mansion with those beautiful decorations hosting the parade of her Alaskan neighbors into the home belonging to the people of Alaska.

This year – just family and friends will gather around the table laughing and talking and sharing just like the other conservative families in America.  She puts things into perspective for me.  Sarah is always gracious; always positive; always available to her family; always steadfast in support of her friends; always dedicated to the God she serves.  Mostly, she is always Sarah.  She is the same person whether she is in the Governor’s office, accepting the nomination for vice president of the United States, signing autographs for supporters at events across America promoting her book “Going Rogue: An American Life”, or sitting on a beach in Hawaii with her family enjoying the sunshine and the blessings that are her children. 

It has been totally disastrous for me to sit and watch what Obama has done to the People’s House in the less than 12 months since he moved in.  Our country and the White House have been disgraced by the Apologizer in Chief.  Conservatives are looking forward to celebrating a bit differently after the 2010 elections.  Mayors, City Managers, Governors, State and US Senators and Representatives should appreciate this – the last Christmas they spend in office.  Appropriate that they should be in DC “working” this Christmas.

The one thing on probably every conservative Christmas list is a total change of command starting in 2010 and finishing the job in 2012.  I don’t suppose I have to tell you who we want to rehabilitate the face of America in 2012, do I?  I am aware of a “Draft Sarah in 2012” campaign.  I am excited about the prospect, but also a little hesitant to join in myself.  I would much prefer to have Sarah Palin announce her candidacy for president because it is what she wants to do rather than what we have drafted her to do, but I will take her in the White House either way!

While Harry Reid spends his Christmas trying to learn the difference between the AARP and the NAACP the rest of us can sleep peacefully while sugar plums dance in our heads – sugar plums who look remarkably like Sarah Palin.

Merry Christmas to all of my Conservative Friends……past and present.

Read Full Post »

Self-Examination and Mammograms

These are two of the most important changes that will come from the socialized medicine that represents itself as a Senate health care bill.  Stop self-exams – they aren’t that important.  Stop early mammogram screenings – they aren’t that important.  If I had lived my life that way, I would not be here to tell this story.

Sarah Palin is right when she speaks up for the people about the idiocy that is being forced on us by a group of people who could not even see their own noses in front of their faces if their political life depended on it.  And believe me, it does!

I am going to tell you more about me than you probably want to know, but I want to tell you so that it might help you save your life or the life of a woman you love.

I had a hysterectomy in 1980.  I was 31 years old and never had children.  With my history of marital success, I had come to thank God for not having given me additional lives to be lived in the turmoil of my own.  I had two step-daughters I loved as though they were mine.  I still do even years after that marriage ended.  I am blessed.

In those days, women were still modest enough to refer to our “monthly visitor” as a “curse”.  In my case, I was lucky if my “monthly visitor” visited every three or four months and with each visit, my discomfort level grew.  I never gave a thought to the possibility of cervical cancer.  That kind of thing happened to someone else; not to me.  Thankfully, that was true in my case.

I hated the pap smears as much as any woman did.  New technologies may have improved that situation but even so it took doctors much too long to come to the conclusion that warm protected areas did not accept cold metal as willingly as they thought.

I still look at that decision as one of the best I ever made.

A decade or so later, I arrived at a new juncture in my road of life.  Nothing I did was right.  That worked out well as nothing anyone else did was right either.  I had less than no energy.  I felt sick and tired every day of my life, and unfortunately, so did everyone who came in contact with me.  It was obvious there was something physically wrong but I had no idea what it was.

I was fortunate to have a doctor who cared enough to listen to the things I was saying.  My symptoms could have been caused by any number of things from thyroid problems to menopause.  I still think no one but a man would have said it this way, but after months of blood work and other tests I received a letter from my doctor’s office stating that my body was in “a menopausal state.”

My point is this:  If he had not been willing to submit me to the barrage of blood tests and other medical tests that he did, and if someone in the federal government had told him that he couldn’t, we might never have known that my symptoms could be cured so easily.

I remember sitting in his office as he explained to me all the possible side effects of hormone replacement therapy (HRT) including the possibility of breast cancer.  That was another one of those “illnesses” that happened to someone else besides me, but I did listen to him carefully because I recognized that this decision could affect the rest of my life.  When he finished with all the “could happens,” I asked him if the medication he was discussing would make me feel better and give me enough energy to at least be able to go out to dinner on a work night.

This may be the hardest part for you to understand.  Given everything he told me could happen, including breast cancer, that wonderful little pill he gave me restored me to the happy person I had been.  I was able to smile not only at my co-workers, but at myself as well.  My whole life was better from my attitude to my health.

I have done breast self-exams for as long as I can remember.  In fact, I don’t remember when I didn’t do them.  Every month around the first of the month faithfully I checked my breasts for anything that didn’t feel as though it belonged there.  My doctor had told me that it was important to continue that habit.

Eventually I noticed a pattern.  I began to notice when something didn’t feel just right, or felt as though it didn’t belong.  I decided that I would handle those situations by waiting 2 weeks, doing the exam again, and if it still didn’t feel like it should, I would go to the doctor.  That plan worked very well for me.  I didn’t have to go to the doctor after that second exam until years later.

I was involved in a training class for a new job.  If I missed even one class, I would have to drop out, wait for the next class and start all over.  If you’ve ever been through a mentally-challenging, intensive training course for any of your jobs, you understand why I had to put that first.  Even after noticing something that didn’t change after my self-imposed two-week waiting period.

My instincts told me this was not like the usual lumpy mass I had felt on pervious exams.  Since I couldn’t get to my doctor right away because of the training class, I watched it very carefully.  I could tell that it was growing quickly.  Luckily for me all the things that needed to happen did.  The new job was working out well, the insurance had kicked in, the training class ended, and I went to the doctor.

One month after I saw my primary care physician to be sure I wasn’t misdiagnosing my problem, I was having a mastectomy.  That too is a decision I have not regretted.  I’m alive.  My cancer is gone and so are my worries of recurrence.

During that one month period, I was at my doctor’s office three times, I had  a mammogram and a follow-up one week later, a sonogram on the breast tumor, a biopsy and a visit to a surgeon’s office.  What if I had been told that I had to wait several weeks or months to any of those follow-up tests?  What if I had had to wait for a year or more to see the surgeon?  After seeing the surgeon, what if I had had to wait months or a year for the actual surgery?

That is exactly what women will be facing with Harry Reid’s incorrectly named health care plan.  You know – the one he and Obama are pushing down our throats.  The one that will kill more people than it will help.

In May 2010, I will celebrate (yes, I’ll celebrate!) my fifth anniversary of survival after breast cancer.

I know I am only one example.  There are thousands of others out there.  Do all the women you love as well as yourself a big favor.  Share my story with everyone you can.  Get it into the hands of your Senator – especially your Democrat Senators – and tell them how this story would have ended if I had had to deal with the monstrosity of their health care plan.  The result if I had is a simple one.

I WOULD BE DEAD!

Read Full Post »